


my hands are shaking (from holding back from you)

by sixtywattgloom



Category: Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017)
Genre: Bondage, F/F, Light BDSM, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 11:47:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13053387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixtywattgloom/pseuds/sixtywattgloom
Summary: There is Olive, an irresistible stranger at a party, a woman somehow existing on both sides of forward and demure; there is Olive, a woman with whom she yesterday discussed the ripeness of available apples at the supermarket, who Elizabeth found asleep on the couch a week ago when Elizabeth's job had kept her late by hours, who crawled into bed two nights ago with cold feet and a colder nose because Peter had wanted to look up at the stars.or, the one in which the three of them attend a relatively extravagant event and pretend no one has met olive. mostly, elizabeth gets tied up. elizabeth/olive-centric.





	my hands are shaking (from holding back from you)

**Author's Note:**

> i have a number of things to say, beginning with:
> 
> 1\. if i read this one more time, i may actually lose my mind -- and also i have made the decision to finish it rather than doing the seven hundred hours of work i promised myself i would do, which i now must return to -- so i apologize in advance for any blatant (and less blatant) errors.
> 
> 2\. this is ENTIRELY MOVIE-BASED, except where i was inspired by olive byrne's irl work for the family circle, in which she actually interviewed william while pretending not to be living at his house. but everyone (except the three of them) is a total invention, and that was really only a vague springboard for what i thought might be a fun thing. clearly she did not use the pen name she uses in this fic.
> 
> 3\. HISTORICAL ACCURACY NOT GUARANTEED. i did look an embarrassing number of things up, but those were mostly me trying to figure out what references i could make in dialogue. not to say that it is not still rife with anachronisms, but occasional effort was put forth. regardless, most things are kept Very Vague and i am not at all a historical expert, tragically. but i do love these characters very much.
> 
> 4\. last thing, i promise: the level of m rated this is is sort of like the movie's take on an r rating, wrt sex: that is, sex is involved, but many of the particulars are not detailed. just so you have some idea what you're getting into here!
> 
> 5\. I'M DONE. thank you in advance for reading i love you??? (oh, and if you want to yell @ me about the Best Movie On Earth, my tumblr's [claudiadonovan](http://www.claudiadonovan.tumblr.com).)

The entire situation is utterly absurd—a fact which she’s noted more than once to both Olive and Bill, neither of whom seem in any way dissuaded by logic. The last time, Bill had _smiled_ at her and told her it was just a little fun, and that surely she’d enjoy herself. And then there’s Olive, who’s spent half the day humming under her breath and casting looks at Elizabeth from beneath her lashes whenever they cross paths, which has rarely ended in any further conversation on the subject. But for fuck’s sake—one of them has to occasionally practice adulthood, and if that makes her the only one among them with any sense at all, so be it. 

But the thing lying on her bed isn’t so much absurd as it is Bill undoubtedly thinking himself clever. “Hilarious, Bill,” she calls from their bedroom, examining the—thing that’s been left laid out on their bed over her outfit for the evening, as if to suggest a different wardrobe. She’s not even sure what to call it, but she is sure that for something she suspects is intended to act as clothing, it comprises about as much fabric in total as a handkerchief. “Surely even Wonder Woman would draw the line at wearing this in public.”

“Actually, that was me,” Olive says, appearing suddenly in the doorframe. She must be nearly ready for the evening; her dress is dark green and buttoned down the front, a headscarf already tied in her hair. “I know you have…reservations about tonight, so I thought…well, perhaps something to look forward to.” 

Olive’s reaching for the fabric before Elizabeth’s fully processed the implication, but when she holds it to her own chest the realization comes sharply into focus. 

The silence stretches between them across several long moments.

“Should I take that as a yes, Mrs. Marston?” Olive asks, the mischief obvious in her smile. She advances the few steps that remain between them, and Elizabeth kisses her so fervently it sends them stumbling forward—just off balance enough that Olive grabs for Elizabeth’s elbow and falls lightly against her chest and laughs into her mouth, warm and delighted.

“It doesn’t count as _motivation_ if you don’t wait,” Olive points out. 

“Well I don’t know about that,” Elizabeth says, pressing a kiss to Olive’s mouth, to the space below her jaw, lingering; the fabric slides from Olive’s fingers and falls to the ground between them as she curls a hand around Elizabeth’s neck. “I’m motivated to do a number of things.”

“Elizabeth,” Olive breathes in what is nearly a whine as Elizabeth directs her backwards and into the doorframe. “I told Bill I’d – help him pick out a tie.”

Elizabeth grabs the wrist from around her neck and tucks it behind Olive’s waist, grip firm, smile sharp; Olive’s breath stutters. “Is that what you want? Do you want to pick out a tie?”

Olive reaches toward her with her spare hand, but Elizabeth thwarts her, drags this wrist too behind Olive’s back and holds them both steady. “What do you want?” she asks.

When Olive lurches forward, perhaps in answer, Elizabeth tightens her grip enough to keep her in place, and Olive makes a small noise in the back of her throat, high and soft and irresistible. 

“Because I was thinking,” Elizabeth says, voice low but altogether conversational, “maybe I could fuck you.” She leans in just enough to kiss her, pulls away with a half-smile when Olive’s response turns eager. “If you’d like that.”

Elizabeth sees as much as hears Olive swallow—and when Olive nods a half-second later, Elizabeth adjusts her grip, shifts so Olive’s wrists are instead pressed against the wall above her head. The _Elizabeth_ Olive whimpers this time is all the encouragement Elizabeth needs; she kisses her like bursting through a locked door and finding only open space beyond.

“Stay there,” Elizabeth murmurs finally, already kissing her again as she gently loosens her hold on her wrists, moves instead to undo the buttons of Olive’s dress. And the fact that Olive _does_ , that even when Elizabeth shifts to kiss her way down Olive’s neck and slides a hand beneath the now-undone buttons of Olive’s dress, she keeps her hands in place—it upends something inside Elizabeth. Her skin is too hot and too tight and too restless, like she’s become impossibly aware of the vibrational frequency of its every atom (or perhaps she’s just spent too much time with Bill, that vague gestures toward science have become an eternally inevitable consequence of sex); it’s all she can do to lean down and scrabble for the end of Olive’s dress, lift it over her head. 

It gets trapped around her arms anyway, and it takes the two of them together to free it—breathing still a little ragged and laughter reckless and Olive’s hair come undone, headscarf wildly askew. 

Maybe it’s the laughter that’s loud enough to summon him at last; either way, they’re kissing again when from the doorway comes, “Elizabeth, you’ve already agreed to tonight’s soirée. And Olive, you’re the one who’s supposed to be arriving _first_.” 

As Olive pulls her dress back over her head, Elizabeth breathes a contemptuous sigh. “An event for a group of self-important fools to gather and pretend they have anything at all to say.”

“And two of those fools are standing in the room with you,” Bill points out. 

Elizabeth casts a dark look his way, gently tucks several loose strands of Olive’s hair back into place. “You just want to hear people tell you you’re changing the world,” she says, and Olive can’t quite hide her smile. 

“We want you there,” Olive insists after a beat, interrupting whatever Bill had been about to say. 

“Besides,” Bill adds, crossing the room to wrap an arm lightly around her waist, “you’ll have more than enough to say for all of them.”

A moment passes, and then another. “Well, I don’t know what you’re still standing around here for, then,” Elizabeth says, folding her arms and looking between them. “Aren’t you going to be late?”

\---

The ballroom is exactly as vast as she expected, and full to the brim with people in glamorous clothes, hair arranged extravagantly, exchanging the same pleasantries a thousand times. Already she’s been told on at least five separate occasions that her dress is exquisite; she’s begun wondering if it isn’t a secret code, or perhaps a cry for help.

“The man on the right. Holding the blue handkerchief,” Elizabeth says. “He’s come in search of an affair—look at the way he keeps touching his left ring finger, like he’s used to having something there. He can’t possibly think that’s the way a woman likes to be approached—eyes up, you fucking imbecile, you’re not rich or handsome enough for any woman to pretend not to hate you.”

“You did say he was married,” Bill reminds her.

“To someone hopefully much more adept at having affairs, if she should ever experience any joy at all.”

“There, pink dress—she keeps trying to escape her husband. A paramour waiting for her in the bushes outside, no doubt.”

“Or a very boring husband,” she suggests. “He’s been describing his brandy for the past fifteen minutes at least.”

“And the striking blonde woman in green?” he asks. “She seems to be searching for something.”

Elizabeth knows long before she spots her in the crowd that Olive must have just entered the room—still, she cannot quite bite back a smile when she finds her. “I imagine a very stable home life,” she says. “A few children, surely. A…a man who loves her, though he dreams sometimes of things like _traveling the world in invisible planes_.”

“Sounds like an interesting fellow indeed,” he says. “But it all seems a bit incomplete.”

“A husband and children?” Elizabeth asks on a sarcastic half-laugh. “Surely a woman can imagine no higher calling.”

“It’s the 40s, Elizabeth. Women can have their own careers, now—like Wonder Woman.”

“Bill, if you’re trying to give yourself credit for creating opportunities for the ‘modern woman,’ so help me,” she intercedes.

“But I didn’t mean a career,” he concludes, waving away the interruption; they watch from across the room as a man with short blonde hair and an easy smile introduces himself. 

“What else could be missing?” Elizabeth asks, and Bill lifts a hand to her cheek and holds her gaze and it’s _terrifying_ —that in a world where two legs is enough for everyone else, any less than three might send them stumbling off balance—and it’s _settling_ , which might be scarier still. 

But there is no more room for discussion; a man with a smile that reaches his whole face and a tie so orange it’s difficult to look away holds out a hand to each of them. “Joseph Livingston, editor at the _Family Circle_. Thank you again for agreeing to the interview, Dr. Marston.”

“My pleasure,” Bill says, nearly at the same time as Elizabeth says, “ _Thank_ him? You’d have to forcibly drag him away to receive anything short of a ‘yes’.”

“Actually, your husband was quite particular,” Livingston continues. “He would only take the interview from one individual—in fact, Ms. Holloway should be making her way over shortly.”

"Of course," Bill says smoothly, but Elizabeth is looking between the two of them like they've unraveled all her English fluency with a single word. "I look forward to it."

"I'm sorry, Ms...?" she asks, clearing her throat.

"Holloway, dear," Bill says. "The journalist I mentioned. Blonde, lovely smile—you'll know her when you see her." He leans in to press a kiss against her temple—gentle, but she can feel his smile still. Smug bastard.

She wonders how long they've been keeping this from her, realizes in a moment of clarity why copies of the magazine have all been supposedly unavailable for the three days since its publication. 

"Excuse me, Mr. Livingston, I may need to grab us some water. My wife's looking...a bit flushed," he says. 

"Oh, don't trouble yourself on my account," Elizabeth says briskly, with a smile she knows he could never mistake for sincere. “You stay here and...” She offers a vague, wild hand gesture, intended somehow to encapsulate this absurd spectacle of formality and the fact that it's the only barrier between him and the many, many things she has in mind to say to him. “ _Talk_.”

He's not wrong, of course—as she approaches the bar, she feels the warmth that crawls up her neck and settles distractingly in her cheeks. Olive's choice in pen name must have come much longer ago than hours, but obviously they found the idea of a public forum appealing. 

The drink she orders is absolutely not water, and the several long sips she takes of it do nothing to cool her down. (Neither does the next, nor the one that follows.)

For a situation in which she's prepared herself to be nothing but guarded, they've still caught her wildly off balance. But multitude of silent threats to the contrary, it's not exactly murder that comprises the images unfolding in her mind when she hears a voice from nearby.

“You might want to keep an eye on him,” it says, and Elizabeth turns sharply to find a woman she was introduced to earlier in the evening. Brown hair, green eyes. Her name might have started with an “A.” Perhaps a “Y.” She hadn’t exactly left an impression. “Your husband,” she clarifies, when Elizabeth says nothing—the raise of her eyebrows enough of an answer, apparently. “The—the journalist. She’s beautiful. And unmarried. And he seems…”

“What is it that he seems?” Elizabeth asks, somewhere between amused and irritated, though for reasons incomprehensible to Mrs. Maybe-A. If the three of them are found out because he couldn’t pretend for three seconds he could think about something besides fucking Olive—

“Just a bit…distracted,” answers the woman, her emphasis clear. 

Elizabeth returns her attention to the crowd, where Olive and Bill seem to be parting ways. “Well, I suppose I should introduce myself then,” she says, offering a close-lipped smile and a careless departure. 

When she reaches her, Olive’s still on the other side of the room, now smiling pleasantly at a man in a gray suit without ever making lasting eye contact. When she turns to see Elizabeth's approach, she brightens immediately, and Elizabeth watches as her smile reaches her eyes. 

“If I could have a moment of your time, Ms. Holloway,” she says, as if pronouncing those three syllables without a single one catching in her throat isn't the hardest thing she's ever done. (Years spent fighting complete fucking imbeciles—the kind who could hardly wrap their minds around a single piece of her research—for a degree she'd earned a thousand times over and this is no less true.)

“Of course. Mrs. Marston, I presume,” she says, and redirects her attention fleetingly to the man whose train of thought Elizabeth no doubt interrupted. Elizabeth offers him a tight smile, as if any part of her could so much as pretend to care. “A pleasure, Mr. Johnson,” Olive continues. “If you would excuse us.”

She doesn't bother waiting for a reply, though she does a remarkable job of concealing her eagerness; her pace is even as she leads them to the edge of the crowd, unhurried, and she offers a polite smile to most everyone they pass. But it's been too many years for Elizabeth to miss her restlessness: her hands fidget, move from her collarbone to her neck to a stray lock of hair. Like it’s taking all the effort she has not to reach out and touch Elizabeth.

And Elizabeth’s had just enough to drink that she when she falls briefly into step beside her, she drags the knuckle of her index finger fleetingly along the inside of Olive’s wrist, almost like a mistake. Olive falls a step behind, but it’s her sharp, surprised intake of breath that makes it impossible for Elizabeth to completely hide her smile.

After what must only be a few more seconds—but feels more like the span of centuries, the rise and fall of empires, perhaps (she thinks, more than a little wry) the lives of Amazons—they stop, near the edge of the crowd but not outside it. "It has been brought to my attention that I should be wary of you, Ms. Holloway," Elizabeth begins. "Even keep an eye on my husband."

The shock Olive feigns is actually quite impressive, complete with wide eyes and a lower lip that quivers nearly imperceptibly. But, then—they've been through these motions, haven't they? 

"So I must ask,” Elizabeth continues, “are you planning to fuck my husband?”

"Of course not! That would be highly unprofessional—and disrespectful, clearly," she adds, with a gesture toward Elizabeth.

“He does seem fond of you already,” Elizabeth says. "The woman who approached me about the matter mentioned your beauty—which is certainly relevant. You do rather stand out in this room.”

“I—the people here—”

“Have accomplished many things, to be sure, but no amount of education could offer them a face like yours.” Elizabeth pauses, as if considering, and watches the color that appears high in Olive's cheeks. “But I think it more than that. My husband has, after all, encountered beautiful women before—”

“Obviously,” Olive interjects, and the pointed appraisal she gives Elizabeth twists something unexpected inside her chest, as if her body has fallen prey to this make-believe scenario. As if this woman with whom she shares breakfasts and the details of her work day and _children_ is indeed an eye-catching stranger at an event brimming over with spectacularly dull people, bold enough to offer a compliment that weighty a mere five feet from another well-dressed stranger. 

(An eye-catching stranger who's kidnapped her name, she thinks, and she feels it like a pressure against her chest: every breath triple the effort, immobilizing and anchoring at once.)

“...and so I find it likely,” Elizabeth continues after a moment, “that you are in possession of other...compelling attributes.”

“I'd like to think so,” Olive says. “Are you asking to find out, Mrs. Marston?”

Elizabeth scans the room, in search of—something safe. A room with four walls and a door that locks, perhaps. Or anywhere that isn't Olive, who's looking at her like an invitation she can't possibly refuse.

By the time she finally refocuses, Olive has unwrapped the scarf from her own hair and tied it around Elizabeth's wrist. She cinches it the moment their eyes meet.

Elizabeth almost surrenders her entire life to kiss her there. 

Instead, Olive whispers, “Follow me.”

Olive's smile is wide, the corners just a little sly; Elizabeth can do nothing else. They walk along the edge of the crowd, across the ballroom, turn right down a corridor Elizabeth didn't even realize existed. This time they're never quite close enough to touch, but Olive keeps casting sidelong glances at her full of desire so unguarded she thinks there cannot be a single person here who hasn't noticed.

But Elizabeth wouldn't know—even the paranoia that burns sharply at the back of her throat cannot dislodge her focus. There is Olive, an irresistible stranger at a party, a woman somehow existing on both sides of forward and demure; there is Olive, a woman with whom she yesterday discussed the ripeness of available apples at the supermarket, who Elizabeth found asleep on the couch a week ago when Elizabeth's job had kept her late by hours, who crawled into bed two nights ago with cold feet and a colder nose because Peter had wanted to look up at the stars. 

Olive turns a sudden right, and in the half second it takes Elizabeth to follow, Olive's reaching back for her, tucking a finger beneath the scarf around her wrist and tugging her into what Elizabeth doesn't quite have time to register as a room because Olive's kissing her, eager and a little ferocious.

“This is quite forward of you, Ms.—Holloway,” Elizabeth manages, when they finally separate. Olive seems to take it as an invitation to kiss her elsewhere—down the side of her neck, open-mouthed and lingering. “Do you make a habit of accosting women at formal events?”

“Only the smartest ones in the room,” Olive says, with the recklessness of a stranger willing to throw unlikely compliments at anyone who catches her eye and the naïveté to believe them, and with the naked sincerity of a woman who has loved her more than a decade and never once been proven wrong.

She also says it like someone who knows enough to know that despite Elizabeth’s answer—“Now that’s quite an assumption”—there’s also a flush spreading all the way up her neck, and only a moment will pass before she’ll grab Olive’s face in both her hands and drag her back up to kiss her again.

It’s Olive who finally pulls away, though in the time it takes her to blink herself back to coherence Elizabeth’s nearly closed the distance between them again. “Wait,” Olive says, finally, brushing her thumb across Elizabeth’s mouth. “This will just be a moment.” With that, she heads toward the opposite corner of the room, leaving a bemused Elizabeth in her wake. 

The room is remarkably bare—there are boxes lined up along the far wall, but otherwise there is only a stray desk beside those and a pillar near Elizabeth. 

“You could—remove a few layers, in the meantime,” Olive calls back.

“ _Could_ I?” Elizabeth echoes. “Not only do you kidnap women, you demand they strip in front of you as well? And how frequently would you say you count this method a success?”

“That depends on how quickly you plan to undress, Mrs. Marston,” she calls, rummaging through one of the boxes, which in itself seems odd enough. “Although from the way your husband tells it, you should by all rights have a PhD to _your_ name as well.”

“In a world where anyone involved in that decision had a single brain cell they dedicated to science instead of an obsession with their own fucking delusions of male superiority, certainly,” she says, casually.

“Well, in that world, Dr. Marston,” Olive answers, lightly, pointedly, “maybe you’d think about taking off your clothes.” 

Elizabeth laughs, which does nothing to mitigate the sudden wild tumbling of her heart inside her chest. And so she does, while Olive reaches into one of the boxes—quickly enough that she’s nearly disrobed entirely by the time Olive turns back around.

Turns back around with one very notable difference.

“Where the hell have you been hiding that?” she asks, because the accessory Olive has clutched in her hands is familiar enough to catch her off guard. 

Olive smiles. “I did tell you I dropped by earlier—they were very accommodating, more than happy to offer me a tour of the place.”

“A prominent feature of which was the nearly-empty storage room, the better to hide a tourist’s belongings,” Elizabeth remarks. 

“Well, it’s only natural a lady should have a moment or two to herself to freshen up,” Olive says, kissing Elizabeth before she can answer—but quickly, too quickly, stepping back before Elizabeth’s even halfway ready to let her go. 

Elizabeth takes the step after her, crowds her enough that it’s easy to read the cracks in Olive’s self-restraint, the crumbling foundation of whatever space she’s trying to leave between them. She watches as Olive’s eyes drop to her mouth, hears the shaky uncertainty of the inhale she draws, sees her fingers tighten around the rope she now holds—

“Wait,” Olive finally manages, with Elizabeth half a breath away. Elizabeth raises her eyebrows, somewhere between a question and a challenge, watches Olive struggle toward clarity.

She must reach it eventually, for she presses Elizabeth gently backward, two steps and against the pillar, reaches tenderly for Elizabeth’s wrist. “Can I…?”

Her voice is quiet. Warm. It’s not the first time, exactly, but it hasn’t been anything serious—not with Elizabeth on this end. Elizabeth meets her eyes, and they hold for several long moments—moments in which Olive is only Olive, the only other woman in the world who knows exactly how she likes her tea.

“Do you keep all your victims waiting like this?” Elizabeth asks. “It seems more than enough time to devise an escape plan. They must have all been very stupid.”

“You don’t seem very interested in escape, Dr. Marston,” Olive points out, though she remains still.

“I’m gathering intelligence,” Elizabeth says, briskly, offering her wrists with all the civility of a business exchange. “It wouldn’t do to let my husband engage in any sort of…fraternization without a bit of prior research.”

“That’s very noble,” Olive says, the fondness she can’t chase from her smile too familiar to fit the game.

“The job of a wife, surely,” Elizabeth says. “To dutifully martyr herself on the blade of her love for her husband.”

She glances down pointedly at her wrists, but Olive doesn’t follow her look; she’s watching Elizabeth’s face, instead, and when she reaches out it’s with her free hand—to brush her thumb gently along the line of Elizabeth’s jaw. A little in spite of herself, Elizabeth breathes out, all at once; her shoulders fall.

The question remains in Olive’s eyes, silent as much as it fills the space between them. This time, Elizabeth nods.

Olive kisses her, forceful and sure and slow, too; by time they separate, she’s already halfway to tying Elizabeth’s hands behind the pillar.

The first thing Elizabeth thinks is, _You’ve been practicing_ , but recalling herself in time, she says, “Quite the unique skillset.” 

“Well, Dr. Marston,” she says, “you seem like quite the unique woman.” Olive tightens the rope enough to tie it off; when Elizabeth shifts, she finds she cannot loosen it.

“Is that okay?” Olive asks, leaning around to examine her work. There’s just enough give for Elizabeth to lean forward and kiss her, like the only answer she has.

What might be twenty minutes later or twenty hours later—were the party to have ended in the main hall, surely she would be none the wiser—Olive brushes her fingertips along the insides of Elizabeth’s thigh, and Elizabeth feels the pillar against the back of her head, startling. It takes a mortifying moment to realize it’s her head that’s fallen backwards and into the very inanimate pillar, rather than the other way around. 

“Olive,” she hears herself say, because Olive has taken her time this evening—and later she might think about half-heartedly chastising her for the fact that she surely won’t be able to expose her neck for a week, because later she might recall that obligation will expect her to step outside these four walls again, but right now Olive’s fingers are tracing maddening, thoughtless patterns into her skin and she’s leaving a feather-light kiss against Elizabeth’s collarbone. 

“Olive what?” Olive asks, her smile tilting into a grin as she nuzzles lightly into Elizabeth’s neck.

In her current state— _distracted_ might be apt—it is not clear immediately what it is Olive’s asking. Maybe it’s the way Olive looks at her when she pulls away, bottom lip caught between her teeth but eyes so sharply focused on Elizabeth it feels a bit like her insides have been carved out and put on display. And Elizabeth can hardly help but think how she must look reflected in them—flush everywhere her skin is visible, eyes half-lidded, each breath a valiant new effort. Her hair has come undone, but it takes a minute of utterly arduous concentration for her to recognize that’s what’s obscuring the right corner of her vision.

She is unfocused, unsteady, unmoored. She tries to still her hands, but they tremble against their bounds altogether in spite of her. She shifts forward and is caught, the soft tug of the rope a reminder of her immobility—a reminder that she feels as much along her wrists as between her thighs. 

And Olive—like she knows, like she can see it unfolding across Elizabeth’s face, like reading the lines of her mouth and the set of her jaw and the vein in her temple comes as easy as breathing, or at least (apparently) rope work—reaches a tender hand forward and cups Elizabeth’s cheek.

It is cool to the touch, though she doubts Olive is cold.

Elizabeth looks forward and past Olive, chin raised just a little, a pathetic show of dignity from a naked woman tied to a pillar, a woman shaking with desire so alive it jostles inside her chest, painful and furious. How strange indeed, that desire this consuming should be so indistinguishable from abject terror.

“Elizabeth,” Olive says, softly, brushing her thumb along Elizabeth’s cheekbone; she tucks away the stray strands of Elizabeth’s hair when she reaches them, clearing her vision. “Is this okay?”

“Perhaps, if you’d hurry up and fuck me already,” Elizabeth says, a hopeless gesture toward imperviousness, like a performance she can recall only in silhouette. 

She meets Olive’s eyes after a moment of silence and finds herself laid bare. 

She finds other things, too: warmth and desire and the kind of breathtaking, improbable certainty that still seems to Elizabeth like something out of a fairy tale.

“You haven’t answered the question,” Olive murmurs again, her mouth curving into something a little playful and a little soft. This time, it takes Elizabeth only a moment to realize her intent.

“Holloway,” she manages, almost flatly, straightening as much as her bonds will allow. “Olive _Holloway_.” It’d be impressive if not for the fact that she can feel the wild turbulence of her heart in every corner of her body, her knees quaking like she’s keeping the entire building aloft.

But she can see the flush appear in Olive’s cheeks, too, watch the way her eyes darken. When she finally—finally— _finally_ —kneels between Elizabeth’s legs and leaves bruising kisses all the way from behind each knee to what is just barely still her inner thigh, Elizabeth thinks not being able to touch Olive might just be enough to kill her entirely.

The first takes almost no time at all, once Olive has made up her mind that she should come; she does not stop for even a moment, not until Elizabeth is already stumbling into her second, no longer on her feet. The third time, she breathes _Mrs. Holloway_ like a shaky admission, only realizing minutes later—once Olive has finished kissing her utterly senseless, and once she has regained something approaching sense again—that the title wasn’t strictly accurate to introduction.

By the last, Elizabeth vows to never move again.

“Elizabeth?” Olive murmurs; Elizabeth’s eyes are mostly closed, but she can feel Olive’s fingers sliding through her hair, can feel the quiet press of Olive’s lips against her temple. 

There is a long, long pause. “That’s Dr. Marston to you,” Elizabeth finally says; the syllables sound strange and a little disconnected, the edges rough, but she can hear the way Olive’s exhale is halfway to a laugh.

Elizabeth feels the soft tug of the rope as she is freed; she feels Olive take her wrists, sliding her fingertips across the skin as if to inspect them; she opens her eyes just enough to watch Olive brush her lips across each in turn.

“Darling,” Elizabeth murmurs, “come here.” She senses Olive’s confusion immediately—they’re already touching in so many places that Olive’s very nearly in her lap. For clarity’s sake, she bends her knee just a little, stares at it pointedly. (There may be little else she can manage, but lack of ingenuity was hardly the thing that deprived her of a doctorate.)

To her credit, Olive processes the request immediately—and even as Elizabeth struggles to fully open her eyes, she watches the flush spread wildly across Olive’s cheeks. “Oh,” Olive says, though Elizabeth isn’t actually sure it’s a word so much as an exhale that sticks in her throat, catching something high-pitched and a little desperate along the way.

When Olive reaches for the hem of her dress, Elizabeth says, “Keep it on.”

Olive drops it immediately, and Elizabeth feels a hazy warmth settle inside her chest. She watches as Olive hikes up her dress, rearranging herself to straddle Elizabeth’s knee—which, though Elizabeth bends it a little more, still offers a rather awkward angle. As best she can, Olive braces herself against the pillar with her hands.

When Olive shifts her hips, even the fabric between them can’t hide the dampness against Elizabeth’s knee. She finds a rhythm easily enough to be remarkable; Elizabeth rests a hand against her waist and watches for several long moments, hears the way her breathing catches and staggers.

“Slow down,” Elizabeth says, and Olive exhales all at once, unsteadily changing pace. Even so, it isn’t long before Elizabeth sees her arms begin to shake, and paired with the soft, lingering noises Elizabeth isn’t even sure Olive knows she’s making, there’s no doubt that she’s—

Olive meets her eyes, and the question she finds there spins wild circles in the pit of her stomach, overwhelming and exhilarating. She settles her hand against Olive’s cheek, curls her fingers through the hair at the back of her neck, and nods. 

Olive comes on a whimper, kept partially upright only, improbably, by Elizabeth. 

“Well,” Elizabeth says, generously, after several beats of quiet, after Olive has curled against her side, “I suppose I’ll allow you the opportunity to interview my husband.”

“He _has_ already agreed, you know.”

Elizabeth turns to face her with eyebrows raised, and the two exchange a look that has nothing to do with this game of first meetings and everything to do with a decade shared between them and a man whose final say has always lived in the hands of his wife.

Olive rises to her feet, only barely shaky, and smooths down her dress. Had Elizabeth not known the current state of her undergarments, she might have even thought she looked—well, with her hair tousled and her cheeks still pink, not put together, exactly, but beset only by the kind of intoxication equaled by at least half the other attendees.

Elizabeth moving to stand is quite another matter; her legs give out altogether the first time, and she slumps back against the pillar, the boneless exhaustion and drinks paired with little else at last catching her up. The second time, Olive takes her hands, but that only causes them to topple over together, a heap of bright, wild laughter.

Olive kisses her on the marble floor, comfortable and easy and then _more_. “Jesus Christ,” Elizabeth says conversationally, between heavy breaths, “if you hoped to send me to an early grave, there are many less time-consuming ways to go about it. Perhaps something involving a knife. Even deft use of the clothesline ought to do the trick.”

“This is much more fun," Olive says, kissing her like it’s the only choice they have.

(It takes the both of them—though Olive alone is responsible for any real forward momentum—more than a handful of minutes to return Elizabeth’s state to suitable for the viewing public. Olive carefully combs her fingers through her hair, lends her balance as she steps through her undergarments—and ignores most of her running commentary about whether or not Olive also plans to put a curfew in place for her, or perhaps meet with her teachers to discuss her in-class performance.

Elizabeth still lists hopelessly against her, but at least by the time they abandon the room she is fully dressed.)

\---

“Your paramour has the stamina of an ox,” Elizabeth says, considering. “Or perhaps a camel. Capable of surviving weeks in the desert without water. Confounding all presumed laws of nature.”

“ _My_ paramour?” Bill asks, looking rather pointedly at a spot just above her collarbone she suspects may have darkened several shades in the last few hours.

“Well, you’ve both gone to all the trouble of confirming she’s _my_ wife, haven’t you?”

Though she’s lying on her back, she can still spot his smile out of the corner of her eye, and she rolls hers. It doesn’t stop him from kissing her cheek, or her mouth a beat later. “I told you you’d enjoy yourself.”

“Some advance warning would have been nice,” she says, leaning her head against his shoulder, exhaustion and a sprinkle of leftover intoxication stealing most of the sting out of her words, though the same cannot be said for the drama. “I’d like to have some idea what kind of situations you plan on throwing me into. It’s only the safety of our entire lives that hangs in the balance.”

Rather than answering directly, Bill pulls away, sitting back against the headboard so as to examine her properly. “My dear, you do look positively ravished.”

Before she can respond, Olive slides the door open and slips inside, smile bright.

“Elizabeth’s turned you into a camel in your absence,” Bill whispers, as they make room for her between them. “Her camel wife, in fact.”

“And to think anyone could have suggested Elizabeth not a romantic,” she says, maneuvering beneath the covers; there’s little about them Olive can’t take in stride anymore.

“Absolutely absurd,” Bill confirms with a laugh.

“I certainly don’t recall either of you making any accusation of the kind three weeks ago,” Elizabeth argues. “Near as I came to being stuck on a liquid diet forever.”

“The clicking noise _was_ troubling,” Olive admits, leaning up to rub her thumb along Elizabeth’s jaw sympathetically. 

“Surely no one here meant to imply being secured to the headboard and repeatedly ravished isn’t romance at its finest,” Bill says agreeably.

Elizabeth is about to offer a retort—something about sacrifice, she thinks—but Olive unexpectedly slides her thumb from Elizabeth’s jaw to the purpling spot above her collarbone and applies just enough pressure that what comes out is more a sharp exhale than anything resembling a word. 

Olive’s smile might be taken for sheer delight if not for the way her eyebrow quirks, just a little, if not for the smugness at the corner of her mouth.

“That one,” Bill says, because it’s been more than a decade and they’re still somehow finding new ways to be impressed, “you’re going to have to teach me.”

Elizabeth breathes out a disbelieving laugh, only a hint shakier than she might have liked. “If you think this will prevent you from losing as many arguments as you deserve,” she begins threateningly, but Olive’s mouth has quite suddenly replaced her finger, and the sound that emerges instead becomes almost unrecognizable, and well past incoherent.

“Just wait until the _Family Circle_ receives feedback from a Mrs. Byrne,” Elizabeth says, several breaths later. “I’m sure she’ll have plenty of wisdom to offer.”

(If Elizabeth thinks for a single moment a threat like that will change the course of her night from one with more orgasms to one without, she has fundamentally miscalculated.)


End file.
